Dive into the revolutionary landscape of healthcare financing in this conversation with CrowdHealth founder Andy Schoonover. Together with host, Christopher Habig, the two shed light on a transformative approach to covering healthcare needs outside the traditional insurance framework.

Schoonover takes us through the concept and mechanics of CrowdHealth, a platform that connects individuals seeking an alternative to health insurance with those willing to fund critical health expenses in a peer-to-peer fashion. You’ll learn about how CrowdHealth challenges the stigma surrounding health insurance, offering a viable alternative for those seeking a more transparent, community-driven, and cost-effective approach to healthcare.

This episode provides a comprehensive understanding of CrowdHealth’s mission to bring humanity back to healthcare, empower individuals in managing their healthcare costs, and foster a sense of community support in the face of medical challenges. If you’ve ever questioned the traditional insurance model or sought a more personalized approach to healthcare financing, this episode offers invaluable insights into the future of community-driven health support.

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[INTRODUCTION]

 

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[EPISODE]

 

[00:00:38] Christopher Habig (CH): Welcome to Healthcare Americana, coming to you from the FreedomDoc Studios. I am your host, Christopher Habig, CEO and Co-Founder of Freedom Healthworks. This is a podcast for the 99% of people who get care in America. We talk to innovative clinicians, policymakers, patients, caregivers, executives, and advocates who are fed up with the status quo and have a desire to change it. We take you behind the scenes with people across America that are putting patients first and restoring trust in American healthcare.

 

Coming from my point of view in the Direct Primary Care, the concierge medical practice standpoint, we have so many people that call in who are very optimistic, very intrigued by the model of a membership to a physician that gets to know you, trust you, can actually lower all of your medical bills, most of them, in a long-term scenario there and in the short term. Number one question we get asked is, you probably guessed it, well, what do I do about my insurance? Or will my insurance pay for this? Or I don’t have insurance, so I can’t come see a doctor. It just makes us shake our head every single time. We have a ton of these phone calls that were coming in here saying what in the world. What are we supposed to tell people when they say, “What about insurance?”

 

Now, there are some insurance alternatives out there. We’ve talked to some health shares in the past, and most of these are structured as nonprofit. Most of them are ministry-based. Meaning, they have some type of religious affiliation. From my standpoint, a lot of people out there in the world who are looking for an insurance alternative or something that’s affordable from a health plan standpoint still have a bit of a distrust of health shares. I don’t know if it’s the non-secular nation or non-secular aspects of these health shares.

 

But today, we are talking about something a little bit different that doesn’t quite fall in either of those two categories, doesn’t fall into insurance, and doesn’t fall into the nonprofit health share world. Please welcome our guest today, Andy Schoonover, the CEO of CrowdHealth. Andy, thanks for joining us here on Healthcare Americana for a very fascinating topic.

 

[00:02:54] Andy Schoonover (AS): Yes. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Looking forward to it.

 

[00:02:57] CH: Now, I don’t mean to cast you outside of the nice, warm, fuzzy, cozy healthcare embrace. But CrowdHealth is something else. It’s a health plan that covers people’s catastrophic needs, so the really big stuff, the really bad year, once-in-a-lifetime type of thing. You lose your house. Go into bankruptcy type of health event. But it’s not insurance. Well, I guess, getting around the negative there. It’s not a nonprofit health share. What exactly is CrowdHealth?

 

[00:03:36] AS: CrowdHealth, in essence, what we are is we are a platform that connects people who are interested in ditching health insurance, interested in doing something different, a different way of getting these bills funded with people who need their bills to be funded. So in essence, what we have to build is a virtual community. So if somebody in the community has a problem, just like we’ve done for the last several hundred years, the community will gather around them and help them out in a peer-to-peer fashion. So it is not necessarily like covering your bills. It’s truly like a love-your-neighbor type of healthcare, where other people in the community will help you out if you have a big health bill.

 

We can kind of talk about the mechanics of that, but the biggest difference here between health shares and health insurance and CrowdHealth is your money is going directly to someone else in the community. It does not go through CrowdHealth, and it is a really truly like a peer-to-peer funding of healthcare expenses, which is very, very different than anything else that’s out there.

 

[00:04:49] CH: So first question that comes to mind, I’m sure you’ve heard this a lot, people have this fear of, well, if this isn’t insurance, how do I know that when I have a need that that money is going to show up?

 

[00:05:01] AS: Yes. I mean, I think all you can do is look at the history. We’ve had – I think we’re adjudicating our 8,500th bill or something like that over the last couple of years. We’ve been around since 2001, and every bill that’s been submitted to the community has been funded. So we’re a several thousand to several thousand. Every single one of them has gotten funded. One of the things that when I was thinking about starting CrowdHealth, I was looking at it as like how do other health insurance companies do in this. Because the reason I started the company is I had a claim denied from a healthcare.gov plan. That was $8,000 for my daughter who needed – she had a hole in her eardrum. The health plan came back and said, “We’re not paying for it because we don’t think it’s medically necessary.”

 

I’ve been very fortunate. I can pay the $8,000 bill. But there’s a lot of people in this country that don’t have $8,000 hanging out to pay for one of these bills. So through that, what I found is that about almost 20%, just under 20% of the claims at healthcare.gov or Obamacare plans were denied. So you got, basically, a one out of five, one out of six chance of getting your bill denied. So I was like, “That’s just not right.” So a lot of people are fearful of a different situation, but I would be more fearful of going on an Obamacare plan because you have a really decent chance of that bill not getting paid.

 

Like I said, I’m the one that got hit with that bill, and it’s not a little one. $8,000 is not a little one. We had 200,000 families last year go bankrupt due to a health event, even though they had health insurance, 200,000 families. So that’s pretty risky to me.

 

[00:06:52] CH: So you’re fighting this stigma, and I see it, too, right, in the in the DPC world. We’re fighting the stigma that just because you have insurance, people think that, “Oh, I have an easy street. I could go and have a chainsaw accident, have a tree fall on me, and have a car run over me, and it’s cool. No matter what the bill is, insurance is going to be like, “Yes, it’s there.” There’s a lot of false advertising that comes with that to build that mindset.

 

I kind of joke to people that I think the government has done an amazing job marketing Medicare as this gold standard, when really it’s just a bare minimum. People don’t understand and that with the ACA, that your story, you’re not the only person. This is not exactly the exception out there. It’s more the rule. So I think we’re both fighting the stigma that why I need health insurance. Well, why? Why do you need health insurance? Are you sure you even know what that means? Because health insurance doesn’t look like any other type of insurance product out there that we would purchase.

 

So along comes CrowdHealth, and you can show these examples to people. But is there anything that really opens their eyes like, “Oh, my gosh. This makes a lot more sense. Now, I understand the fallacies of this insurance mindset.”?

 

[00:08:07] AS: Yes. I mean, I think one of the biggest challenges that people have with healthcare is nobody understands what it costs. I mean, the great thing about the DPC model is you’re paying for it. You know what it costs. I always say that whoever is paying your bills is who you work for, right? So under the insurance model, if you go to a primary care doc, guess what? That doctor works for the insurance company. That’s who’s paying him. Under the DPC model, the doctor works for you. You are the customer. So that is significantly different than any other model.

 

In the same way, what we’re trying to do is facilitate people paying for their bills directly so that the doctor works for them. The hospital works for them. You are the customer, as opposed to your health insurance plan. As a result of that, we’re getting significantly better prices. Like they actually have to think about what would you pay for this service, as opposed to let’s just pick a random number out of the air and try to bill it.

 

We had a member just last week who could have bought a specific healthcare service with their health insurance plan. It was literally 10 times as much than if they were to pay it in cash. So if we can enable you to pay for all of your services in cash, you’re going to get anywhere between 30 and 70 percent better pricing than health insurance plans. That, as a result, brings the entire price structure of the healthcare system down.

 

That, when I tell people you can get way better pricing if you pay in cash than your health plan, they think your health plan is UnitedHealthcare. They got all this power to negotiate. In reality, they don’t. You as an individual have more negotiating power than UnitedHealthcare.

 

[00:09:53] CH: And they don’t want to. United doesn’t want to because the government stepped in and said, “Thou shall only have X% of profit margin.” So I’d rather have four percent of a million dollar rather than four percent of $100, so I am incentivized to drive prices up and pay more.

 

[00:10:10] AS: Yes. When the buyer of healthcare and the seller of healthcare both want the prices to go up, guess what? The prices are going up. You don’t need a PhD in economics to figure out that if the buyer and seller want the price to go up, it’s going to go up.

 

[00:10:23] CH: And talk about limited supply, and monopolies are only good for the monopolist. Everybody else tends to lose. So, Andy, tell me. Walk me through this, all right? So I’m looking at joining CrowdHealth for my family. Walk me through what that looks like from a step-by-step interaction and then a monthly commitment. What do I have to do? What does that look like?

 

[00:10:45] AS: Yes. So it’s a little bit different than, like I said, insurance or health shares out there. You actually will get two bills in the month. One is an invoice for $50 per person. So if you have a family of four, that would be $200. That goes to to CrowdHealth. That’s the only revenue we get. We don’t touch the money other than that, so we get the $200. If you had that family of four, it would be an additional $375. That money would go directly to somebody else in the community that needs help with a health event right now.

 

For example, this month, we’ve built – we’ve crowdfunded several NICU babies, a lymphoma case, all kinds of very large bills. Your money would go from your account to their account. These are accounts that we start for you when you join CrowdHealth. So in essence, we’re sending all this money to one account. You then will have enough money in that account to pay everything from a pediatric visit to a lymphoma case. So that’s the way it works. It’s truly kind of a peer-to-peer.

 

Everybody’s familiar with Venmo. This is not Venmo. But just imagine everybody in your little community had Venmos, and I would say, “Hey, Chris. I need some help with this medical bill. Would you send me some money?” Everybody Venmos you the money so that you have money in that one account to then go and pay your healthcare bill. Think of us as kind of the Venmo of healthcare. It’s money gets transferred around so that you have enough money in that account to then show up to your orthopedic surgeon or your whoever to be able to pay that at the point of care. Given we’re doing it at the point of care, those doctors are giving us, like I said before, 30 to 70 percent discounts, depending upon what service it is.

 

[00:12:28] CH: Has anybody said, “Well, I feel a little funny sending money directly to somebody or relying on this person over here. Why don’t they just route it through corporate? Why don’t they just route through CrowdHealth, and then you guys distribute it? Why the peer-to-peer exchange?”

 

[00:12:44] AS: Yes. We don’t want to touch the money. We don’t want to get into money transmission issues. If we touch the money, then there is evidence there that we could be insurance. So we try to stay out of the money flow. So we don’t touch the money at all. We have never touched the money at CrowdHealth. So that’s really important to us. We think there’s a really powerful component here, where if you’re sending money directly to another person, you know what – where your money is going.

 

For example, we had a member who six or seven months ago had a miscarriage. So we sent that bill around to I forget exactly how many people was it. Maybe it was 50 people or something for – and it was $50 each. We had people come back to us and say, “Hey, this woman in Texas who had a miscarriage, that really impacted me. It’s cool that I get to know that my money goes directly to her because that’s a part of my story, too. That’s a part of my family’s story. I know what that family is going through. Can I give her $100 instead of the $50 that you’ve asked me for? Because I have a personal connection with that human being who’s going through something very, very difficult.”

 

So we kind of say we’re bringing humanity back to healthcare. Like I said, for hundreds of years, if we had somebody in our community who got hurt, we all rallied around that person. But in the 1970s, the government and health insurance companies have stuck themselves in between us and our neighbor. So we no longer feel responsible for them. We don’t feel like if they do get in trouble, that we can help because we’ve kind of pushed that to big entities, as opposed to people within our own community. We’ve lost a sense of community as a result of that.

 

So we’re trying to bring that back with CrowdHealth, where it’s like, “Hey, your community member should be there for you if something really bad happens.” So far, like I said, with thousands and thousands of bills, it’s worked beautifully.

 

[00:14:38] CH: Well, not only has insurance companies stuck themselves in the middle of the community. They’ve stuck themselves in the middle of the community. You and your doctor, your trusted healthcare professional can be able to do that. Okay. So I’m listening to this. I’m nodding my head. I’m like, “Yes, this is really cool,” and to be able to experience some of the pain and suffering. Then really the triumph that families do go through, like that’s very, very powerful.

 

What about privacy? There’s got to be somebody who says, “Well, I –” Miscarriage, there’s a lot of stigma around it. My family went through it. There’s a lot of Americans that go through it. A lot of people over the world that go through it, and we don’t want to talk about it, right? There’s this stigma. What about privacy? What type of protocols do you guys have in place? When those need requests go out, will you say – like where do you draw the limit to make sure that if I don’t want my story out there, I’m only going to have what people need to know in order to help me out financially?

 

[00:15:31] AS: Yes. The only information that you get about this person is gender and location and the illness or injury that they had. So I’m not telling you, “Chris Habig from Indiana had X, Y, or Z,” right? Or, “Andy Schoonover in Austin, Texas had X, Y, and Z.” It’s, “We have a male in Indianapolis who suffered from a broken arm. He needs some help. Would you be willing to help him out with 50 bucks?” So you know it’s going to an individual in Indiana or Austin, Texas or wherever. We don’t give away personal PHI in that that transaction. So we’re very, very careful with that. That’s how we keep the privacy.

 

[00:16:15] CH: Andy, we’re going to take a quick break. We’re going to hear back from our fantastic sponsor, FreedomDoc. After the break, I’m going to continue this conversation because I think there’s a lot to unpack here that people need to know about around this model. Specifically, when we come back, we’re going to talk about what happens if a CrowdHealth member declines a request. So more to come with Andy Schoonover, the CEO of CrowdHealth. But, first, a message from our sponsor, FreedomDoc.

 

Physician burnout is a killer. It is driving our best and brightest out of medicine. The only solution to burnout is to become your own boss. Easiest way to be your own boss is to join the FreedomDoc Physician Network. FreedomDoc is a unified network and will fully finance your practice so that you can enjoy a healthier lifestyle, take better care of patients, and spend more time with your family. You focus on patience. FreedomDoc focuses on your business. So if you’re ready to be your own boss, visit our website, freedomdoc.care, to learn more and schedule a consultation with one of our experts. FreedomDoc, accessible concierge healthcare.

 

We are back with the second part of our episode. Once again, we’re talking with Andy Schoonover, the CEO of CrowdHealth. Andy, before the break, we were talking about your model, how it occupies this space of I need something else besides the health insurance because the costs are exorbitant, and it doesn’t really do anything for me. But it doesn’t fall underneath the nonprofit health share world and all the hoops you have to jump through from that standpoint. It is something truly, truly unique, a community of people banding together and helping each other out.

 

So, Andy, we talked about the need requests if – you don’t say Chris. But a male in Indianapolis breaks his arm, needs 50 bucks from X number of people. You get that funded. Walk us through if somebody is a member, gets a bill, and says, “Wow, Andy. I just don’t have $50 extra this month.” What is the process? What happens then if you have need requests from your members that aren’t being met?

 

[00:18:16] AS: Yes. So far, about 98.7% of the time, people say yes. One of the kind of key components of that is if Chris from Indiana requests funds from the community, there’s two things we learn about Chris. We learn about his bill. So did Chris go to the Mayo Clinic for his flu and rack up 10,000 or 20,000 dollars for something that shouldn’t have been 10,000 or 20,000 dollars? So we rank that bill to tell people like, “Is Chris treating your money like it’s his money?”

 

The second thing we tell people is has Chris been a good member of the community. So the last 10 times that we’ve asked Chris, has he said yes, yes, yes, yes, yes? Or has he said no, no, no, no, no, right? So we know if Chris has been a good member of the community. If he’s been a bad member of the community, then you may not fund him. If he’s been a great member of the community, the probability is you fund him. So that’s what we’ve seen thus far, just like any other community. If you’re a bad member of the community, and you need an extra something of flour, it’s probably going to be a little bit harder to get you that extra flour for your pancakes or whatever than if you a really good member of the community. So that’s just how communities work and similar to CrowdHealth.

 

[00:19:36] CH: So is there – I don’t want to butcher this, but it’s almost like a social score, like you rank my involvement with people. So the more giving you are, the better off you’re going to be if and when your time comes to ask for help.

 

[00:19:52] AS: I mean, we kind of call it more of like a reputation score, right? It’s not too different than Amazon.

 

[00:19:57] CH: It’s not too like Black Mirror-focused over here.

 

[00:20:02] AS: It’s like Amazon or eBay or whatever. It’s like do I want to interact with this person based upon their behavior from the past? In essence, that’s what that is. It’s very, very clear. We’re not taking multivariate equations into figuring out what your social score is. It’s literally how much have you been asked and how much have you’ve been given. That’s your ranking. So it’s very simple, simplistic. We try to keep it simple, but it’s very effective, too, in ensuring this reciprocity that drives the engine of CrowdHealth.

 

[00:20:34] CH: Now, you also mentioned, if somebody walked into a really top tier, very expensive facility for something that probably didn’t need to go through all that expense, you look at that from your standpoint and say, “Ooh, that probably wasn’t a smart idea.” Walk us through what happens if I’m not being a good steward of my community members and their finances. If I’m not doing my homework and assuming that I’m not bleeding on a highway somewhere, it’s not emergent, right? But if I need something, it’s more elective, and I’m not doing my homework to figure out where the best place is for the best price, what happens then?

 

[00:21:11] AS: Yes. So for these emergent issues, like we’re not asking you to negotiate on the way to the hospital. Unfortunately, I had an ambulance ride to the hospital last week. I’m fine, thank God. But when they called my wife and said, “Where do you want him to go,” they said, “Bring him to the nearest hospital.” So you don’t have to worry about what hospital you go to an emergent issue.

 

When you have situations where there is a plan procedure, so let’s just say you tore your ACL. You go to an orthopedic surgeon. They say, “Hey, it’s $24,000. We find another doc within your area that’s 10,000 or 12,000 dollars.” This is a real case, so I’m using real numbers here. You have a decision to make. Like do you really want to go to the $24,000 doc? Or do you want to go to the $12,000 doc? We just think it’s fair for the community to know when you go to the $24,000 doc that you’ve chosen that. So you can make your decision whether to fund that based upon that information.

 

The key here for us is all we ask is for some of these big procedures, procedures over $1,000, just call us. Just call us and say, “Hey, do you do of any great docs in Austin, Texas who can do ACL repairs?” If we do, then we’ll let you know what the price is. If the price is close to what you could find, then go ahead and go to whatever doc. If it’s way less, then we think that the members of the community should know that before they fund that doctor bill.”

 

[00:22:38] CH: So do you guys have your own inside sales team educating perspective members on exactly what you’re doing?

 

[00:22:45] AS: Yes, we have. One of the things I hate about health insurance is calling into big call centers. A lot of times, it’s not even in this country. Talking to people that I don’t know and telling them about my medical condition, which could be very private. Then getting punted to another person to tell them about it. So what we have at CrowdHealth is you’ve got a team of two care advocates internally at CrowdHealth. You will talk to one of those two people every time you call in or text in or email in. One of those two people are going to respond to you. Unless you have a very complex case, then we escalate it to a complex care person.

 

But we want you to know the person internally. So anytime you have a big health issue, you can call us. We’ll talk to you. We know you. We can help you find a really great place to go. So it’s just if anybody has any concerns about getting really expensive healthcare, all you have to do is call us. It’s super easy, and we we’re only asking that for plan procedures. So you have time to call us and say, “Hey, here’s where I’m going. Here’s how much it’s going to cost. Is that a good price or not a good price?” We can tell you pretty quickly.

 

[00:23:50] CH: I think that’s what separates you from a lot of the health shares that we work with through Freedom Healthworks is that a lot of that explanation, a lot of the impetus to sell this really into individuals falls on outsourced brokers or agents, I believe, is what they call them or on physicians. I’m like, “Oh, my gosh.” The last thing we want to do is say to our doctor, “Hey, Doc. You have all this extensive medical training, and now you’re building relationship with this person.” Now, you need to go learn over here about this health plan side of it. They’re going to look me like I have three eyes in my middle of my forehead. I’m wearing my glasses this episode, so I couldn’t say four eyes. But I got an eyeball in the middle of my forehead here.

 

So that’s what I love about what you guys are doing. You’ve recognized that and saying, “You know what? This is something that is really so delicate,” is what I’m going to say on that one that the way you frame it, the terminology use, the vocabulary you use is so unique in order to not run afoul of any insurance regulators. That you just took that and you’re like, “Look, the best people to explain this are people underneath this roof.” I really commend you on that because that’s something we have struggled with from a health share’s standpoint. It’s refreshing to hear your approach on it.

 

[00:25:06] AS: Yes. We don’t use any brokers. We don’t use any affiliates. We don’t do any of that. We require you when you sign up to have a 15-minute phone call with your care advocate internally to get to know her, to get to understand what you actually bought. Like we want to be the ones telling you what this actually is that you understand it. It betters you. It betters the community if exactly how this works.

 

One thing I wanted to say, too, and just in terms of this navigation, DPC, plus what we’re doing, is like a perfect combination because you’ve got this doctor who does oftentimes know the best orthopedic surgeon in town or the best rheumatologist or whatever issue you’re going through. So what we like to do is work with you, and you work with your doctors that we can get you to the right person.

 

But, man, if you have a DPC doc who’s got your back and knows some of these folks in that immediate area, which the vast majority of the time they do, that can be the best reference that you’ll get isn’t one doctor telling you that another doctor is really, really good, is like the perfect reference. So we use those DPC docs to kind of be one of the helpers in the navigation because they know better than anybody, who’s good in their area.

 

[00:26:23] CH: You let them stick to medical issues and where the best care is and make a phone call to get them to the front of the line. That’s where they thrive. That’s going to be a happy doctor right there. I’m not going to burn them saying, “Hey, Doc. You got to go talk to your patient about this plan over here.” Everybody’s experience is so unique. It’s hard to do that, unless you are just living in it every single day. But, yes, to your point, the care navigation is wildly, wildly important. We see great results from that from our doctors.

 

Let’s say we have some great doctors like, “Look, a lot of times, I function more as a financial adviser to my patients than I do a medical adviser.” I’m like, “You know what? That’s really interesting.” She’s like, “I save thousands and thousands of dollars for my patients because I say, ‘Well, don’t go to this big hospital over here. Here’s an independent physician group who’s going to save you a ton of money. And, oh, by the way, here are other sources, resources out there to go call.’” So care navigation is huge.

 

I think people – I don’t know why. But I think patients have just gotten so lazy that they don’t even want to think about calling somebody. If you could text a hospital to get a price, that might be revolutionary for somebody to this day and age. But like nobody wants to ask that question. Nobody wants to go in and ask their doctor how much something costs. So we’re going to need more and more alternatives, just like you guys. Or if you guys just become big and take it all over, I’d be cool with that one as well.

 

[00:27:47] AS: Hey, we’re down with that. You can call us anytime and say, “Hey, how much will this cost,” and we’ll make that phone call for you. So if you want to be lazy around those things, feel free because we are happy to go and do some work. We probably, with most major metropolitan areas, know what the price is going to be anyway. So we’ll have that information for you, so you don’t have to call around. You don’t have to ask your doc how much it costs.

 

Just – by the way, we love the independent docs, right? Because the most expensive words in healthcare are go down the hall. If you’re just going down the hall, you know what that means is you’re in a hospital system, more than likely. They’re sending you to some affiliated doctor or lab or imaging center, and it’s going to cost you three, four, five times as much as it would if you went and found a place that would take cash.

 

So whether you have insurance and you’re under a big deductible, don’t walk down the hall. If you don’t have insurance, don’t walk down the hall because it’s going to be really, really expensive. Please, give us a call first, and we’ll help you out, try to find you a really great place to get a service done.

 

[00:28:54] CH: Andy, you’re not saying that there is a conflict of interest within the halls of a hospital, are you?

 

[00:28:59] AS: I would never ever, ever say that, never. Mm-mm.

 

[00:29:03] CH: All this with a straight face.

 

[00:29:05] AS: There’s no reason why these hospital systems are going and gobbling up all the independent docs and labs and imaging centers and all these things to create – I wouldn’t say this either. They would never create a monopoly or an oligopoly within a city so that they can drive up prices. That’s not at all what I ever would say.

 

[00:29:25] CH: Almost with a straight face. You almost made it there, Andy.

 

[00:29:26] AS: Almost.

 

[00:29:28] CH: One last question I have, so what kind of people are you seeing joining this? I mean, somebody who might be listening and be like, “Oh, these are just like the fringe. These are like the preppers out there, the doomsdayers.” What kind of people? What kind of families are you seeing join CrowdHealth?

 

[00:29:42] AS: Yes. I mean, we had everybody from doomsday, preppers, for sure, to big families. I mean, I think our biggest family is a family of 10. So we’ve got everything. I think we got a lot of people who are just sick and tired of being enslaved by health insurance for not having kind of sovereignty over their own healthcare. They have to ask their health insurance provider if they can get certain things done. For us, it’s like, look, it’s back between you and your doctor. Like this should be between you and your doctor, and we trust that if your doctor, especially within a DPC scenario, says that something needs to get done, something needs to get done, and we’re not in any position to say that that’s not the case.

 

So we got a lot of people who are entrepreneurs, who are trying to jump off and start new businesses. Health insurance is one of the big barriers to do that. We provide something for – we mentioned the pricing for a family of four. But if you’re an individual, it’s 175 bucks a month. It’s basically the amount that you’re paying for your cell phone and your cable, for your healthcare. That’s very reasonable when you’re going and trying to start a business. So number one group of people we have is entrepreneurs, freelancers, gig workers, folks who are trying to be out on their own, doing their own independent thing. So we love those folks.

 

[00:30:58] CH: Andy, last question for you. I’m going to use my billboard ZAR question here to send us off here. So you’re the billboard ZAR. You get to control every single billboard across the US, but you got to put one message on there that people can read. Maybe not necessarily understand and digest but at least read and understand going by at 80 miles an hour. What do you put on your billboards?

 

[00:31:23] AS: Oh, man. That’s a great question. Look, I would say ditch health insurance. Ditch health insurance would be my billboard. We’ve been psyoped into thinking that everybody has to have health insurance. I don’t think it’s the case. I think you can actually operate way, way better without having health insurance for the vast majority of cases. So ditch health insurance, dot, dot, dot. Burn it down. How about that? Burn down the system. There it is. I think that would get people’s attention.

 

[00:31:51] CH: Got the revolutionary fervor going here. Andy Schoonover, CEO of CrowdHealth. Andy, thank you for joining us here on Healthcare Americana. It has been a pleasure.

 

[00:32:00] AS: Thanks, Chris. It’s been fun.

[00:32:02] CH: That’s going to do it for this episode. If you haven’t yet, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out online at healthcareamericana.com to catch previous episodes. Subscribe to our mailing list, and visit our online store. Once again, I am your host, Christopher Habig. Thanks for listening.

 

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[00:33:21] Christopher Habig: Hi, again, everyone. This is Chris. On Healthcare Americana, we’re always on the lookout for great stories to tell in the healthcare industry. We’d like to hear yours. Check out healthcareamericana.com, and send us your ideas for episodes or if you’d like to be a guest. Thanks again for listening. Hope you enjoy it.

 

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